Are people inherently good or bad? What does religion have to do with it?

About this event

Discussion Prompt: The physicist Steven Weinberg, who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, gave freethinkers a line they still like to quote. In 1999, speaking at an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, he said: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.”

Evolutionary biologists don’t see helping others as a puzzle needing a supernatural answer. Helping relatives spreads shared genes (kin selection), and trading favors pays off when cheaters get shunned (reciprocal altruism). Children show it early: in a 2006 study, 18-month-olds helped a stranger without being asked or rewarded, and in a follow-up, toddlers who were rewarded helped less afterward. Infants as young as 6 months have also been found to prefer a character who helps over one who hinders, though some findings have been hard to reproduce.

But if we have natural inclinations toward kindness, why do people behave cruelly? Are some people simply good and others bad, or do circumstances matter more than we realize?

In a 1973 study, seminary students on their way to give a talk on the Good Samaritan passed a man slumped in a doorway, coughing and groaning. Of those who weren't rushed, 63% stopped; of those told they were running late, only 10% did. In Stanley Milgram's obedience experiments, 65% of participants went all the way to what they believed was a 450-volt shock, and a 2009 replication found a similar rate.

These experiments suggest that circumstances and authority can override our better instincts. Could religious authority have a similar effect? Religious people often attribute their goodness to their faith, but perhaps religion is less the source of their morality than a framework for understanding and justifying it. When religious teachings conflict with empathy and compassion, can religious authority persuade otherwise good people to act cruelly?

Related questions:

• Are people inherently good or bad, or are we all capable of both? How much of our behavior comes from character versus circumstances?

• Does religion make people more moral, or primarily provide a framework for understanding and justifying moral instincts we already possess?

• Weinberg suggests religion enables evil that wouldn't otherwise happen. Can religious dogma convince people that cruelty is righteous? Can secular ideologies do the same?

• Religious people give more than the nonreligious, but research suggests congregational friendships matter more than belief. Does religion encourage generosity, or does community?

• If time pressure can overcome seminary training, and obedience to authority can lead people to inflict suffering, how much credit or blame belongs to individual character?

• Where did you learn right from wrong? Did religion, or leaving it, change your behavior or merely how you explain it?

People are capable of generosity and cruelty, often under different circumstances. If character is so sensitive to circumstances, what does it mean to call someone good or bad? And if religion shapes our behavior, does it bring out the best in us, the worst, or both?

***All participants are asked to familiarize themselves with and agree to follow our code of conduct .

When & Where: The forum is on Thursday, December 3, 2026 at 6:30 pm in Community Room A at the Keith Summey Library, located at 3503 Rivers Ave in North Charleston.

You can bring dinner! We are allowed to have food and drink inside the community room at the library (we just can’t have heat sources). Since we are meeting around dinner time, we invite people to bring take-out dinner or snacks. We also have the space from 6 pm, so welcome people to come early to socialize before we begin the discussion.

About the group: The Freethinkers' Forum is a monthly gathering facilitated by the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry to discuss topics of interest to freethinkers, atheists, agnostics and other non-religious people. The purpose of these gatherings is to foster respectful dialogue of interesting and intellectually stimulating topics. The focus is discussion and so we will not have speakers.

From Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry